How various old mythologies explained the northern and southern lights

AboveImage: NASA’s IMAGE satellite captured this view of the aurora australis (southern lights). ImageCredit: NASA/JPL Source:NASA; Sourced for this blog in 11/2013. Image is available because NASA is a government entity and its images and websites arenot copyrighted.

You may be familiar with Aurora, the Roman goddess of dawn and the mother of winds who rises in the morning to announce the arrival of her son, Sol, and you’d be right to guess that she’s precisely where the name comes from that we use to refer to the gorgeous Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis. The titles respectively translate from Latin to “Northern Dawn” and “Southern Dawn”, which we now know are misnomers because the phenomena has nothing to do with the rising of the sun. Although there’s really no way to know for sure, it is widely believed that the first person to coin the term Aurora Borealis was either the Italian astronomer Galileo in 1619, or the French philosopher Gassendi in 1622.

AboveImage: Aurora Australis as seen from Earth’s Surface from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. The picture also shows the SPUD microwave telescope on the left. ImageCredit: NASA/Robert Schwarz Source:NASA; Sourced for this blog in 11/2013. Image is available because NASA is a government entity and its images and websites arenot copyrighted.

I suppose if I had no knowledge of modern science, and I were to see something as strange as the auroras, especially if I didn’t see it on a regular basis, I could imagine myself thinking up all sorts of things to explain what it might be. They were often thought of as bad omens and were thought of as predictors of anything from bad weather to an unfruitful harvest. Especially by those who didn’t live in an area that experienced them often.

The Inuit of Hudson Bay thought of the phenomena as the lanterns of demons that were out searching for lost souls. Some other Alaskan Inuits thought the lights were from the souls of the animals that they killed. Some tribes in Alaska and Greenland thought of them as the spirits of their dead playing a ball game with the skull of a walrus (the walrus represents death in some cultures) while the Nunivak islanders thought of them as a walruses playing a ball game with a human skull. Another belief from Greenland is that the lights were infant spirits playing a ball game with their after births.

Some Native North Americans even believed that all you had to do was clap your hands to force the lights to retreat, but if you whistled at the lights instead they would sweep down and take you from the Earth. Some Plains Indian tribes were convinced that the lights were the fires from below the pots that they boiled their enemies in. Menominee Indians of North America even believed that there were giants that lived in the North that made these lights.

Not everyone saw the lights as an ill omen, though. Estonian tribes believed that they were shining reflections from sleighs and horses that were carrying guests to a lavish wedding in the skies. Medieval Europeans took the lights as a sign from God, while the Algonquin believed they were a reminder from their creator, Nanahbozho, that he was thinking about them. Scandinavians and some Chinese and Japanese people thought the lights enhanced the Earth’s fertility. In Norse mythology, the lights were described as being the glow or reflection from the helmets, armor and weapons of the Valkyrie that would gallop across the night sky to lead fallen warriors to Vallhalla. In Finland, the lights were thought to be caused by fox tails swooshing through the snow as they ran, causing sparks to fly into the sky.

In 1862 during the Battle of Fredericksburg the Northern Lights made a rare appearance as far south in North America as Virginia, which caused the Rebels to think it was a sign from God that he was on their side of the war. Even during the Klondike gold rush the lights were seen as a predictor of a large collection of gold.

The Earth isn’t the only place the phenomenon occurs, either, auroras have been observed on all of the gas planets as well as some of their moons, all it takes is an atmosphere and a magnetic field. Check out these images of other worldly auroras!

AboveImage: Hubble Follows Jupiter Aurorae ImageCredit: NASA/ESA Source: NASA; Sourced for this blog in 11/2013. Image is available because NASA is a government entity and its images and websites arenot copyrighted.

AboveImage: Saturn’s Auroras, June 21, 2005 ImageCredit: NASA/JPL/University of Colorado Source:NASA; Sourced for this blog in 11/2013. Image is available because NASA is a government entity and its images and websites arenot copyrighted.

AboveImage: Hubble Spots Aurorae on the Planet Uranus ImageCredit: NASA, ESA, and L. Lamy (Observatory of Paris, CNRS, CNES) Source:NASA; Sourced for this blog in 11/2013. Image is available because NASA is a government entity and its images and websites arenot copyrighted.

Unfortunately, I live far too close to the equator to witness the lights on even a rare occasion. I do wish to one day travel to a place where I can see them regularly, I’d love to spend a few weeks there and watch them as often as they come. I think it would be an experience like no other. Have you ever seen the Northern or Southern lights? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments below!

About Dani Johnson

I am 26 years old and I live in a college town with my boyfriend, our 2 dogs and chinchilla, 4 additional room mates and the house cat. Since I share financial responsibilities with my boyfriend I am waiting on him to finish college before I go back (he's almost done!). I will then focus my studies on Science Writing. I want to write particularly about Astrophysics, Cosmology and Planetary Science. Until then, I spend my free time listening to various podcasts about science and skepticism to inspire deeper research on potential writing topics. I also enjoy sewing, drawing, writing fiction, spending time with the boyfriend and pets, amateur astronomy and some girly things like nails, hair and makeup.

Odd, here I am three years later, after your posting, reading your comments. My wife and I were discussing what the Vikings thought as the reason for the Northern Lights.

I live in Northern California where we never see the Aurora. But I have been to Alaska 5 times and had never seen them because of cloud cover on the nights they were supposed to be out. Finally , on my last trip in September ,2015, we saw them in Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, Canada, on our way back home…it was awesome! Like seeing the Hand of God. Truly the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. Sorry about the poor quality of the video, it was taken on a small action camcorder.

Hope you get to see them some day, perhaps the Aurora Australis in southern New Zealand? ( and maybe you’ve since seen them since you made this posting.)

I was born in Alaska, but moved to Texas when I was about seven years old. Missing the Northern Lights is a real bummer. Apparently they CAN be seen very rarely, if there’s a large enough coronal mass ejection that strikes the magnetosphere just right. In 1859 there was an aurora event so massive that the Northern Lights could be seen as far south as the Caribbean. But I think that also runs the risk of damaging a lot of electrical infrastructure and equipment. So cross your fingers that the only place you ever see them is far north.

Years ago, very occasionally I used to see the Southern Lights in our New Zealand southern sky, mostly as a dim coloured glow – and that was when our sky was relatively uncontaminated by the street lights of today.

I read somewhere that the Vikings saw the coloured curtain-like lights in the sky as being the swirling tunics of their warrior ancestors as they fought a perpetual battle in heaven. I suppose such a perspective could give comfort and inspiration to such a warrior people.